


Jewel

by Tarlan



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Community: mcsheplets, M/M, Trope Bingo Round 6
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-21
Updated: 2016-03-21
Packaged: 2018-05-28 05:56:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 892
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6317383
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tarlan/pseuds/Tarlan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Jewel of the Haldalri promised a blessing. For once John was truly blessed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Jewel

**Author's Note:**

  * For [adafrog](https://archiveofourown.org/users/adafrog/gifts).



> Written for:  
>  **mcsheplets** 220: Luck  
>  **trope_bingo** Round 6 prompt: matchmaker

Over the years many people had tried to match-make for John. His father had found him the perfect wife in Nancy, at least she was perfect in his dad's eyes. Nancy had the right family connections and she was smart enough to keep him on his toes, but also smart enough to figure out he really wasn't that interested in her. It was a marriage of convenience for both of them, and if she had remembered that once married to Patrick Sheppard's son she would be living in a goldfish bowl then maybe they'd still be married. One too many indiscretions caught on camera while he was serving overseas had cast her in the role as the villain in the Press, though his dad had never blamed or ostracized her. Instead he had taken John to task, blaming him for Nancy looking outside of their marriage for companionship... for love.

He'd never reconciled with his dad before his death, and really wasn't surprised to see Nancy at the funeral even though John hadn't spoken to his father in close to twenty years.

Just his luck, various priests, chiefs, and others had tried to match-make for him after he traveled to another galaxy and they discovered he had the blood of the Ancients running thick through his veins. They threw their daughters at him, forcing him to complete elaborate rituals until he or someone else on the Team figured out a way to escape their clutches. Eventually most accepted he wasn't interested in an old-fashioned alliance of marriage, or even a single night with their women, mourning the Ancestor-touched offspring they would never see. Those that didn't accept that he wasn't interested ended up on the blacklist of planets they would never travel to again.

Teyla didn't understand at first, deciding it was some hang-up of the new Lanteans in not sowing their seed wherever they went, helping the local gene pools. Thankfully, after their one kiss while he was turning into a bug she swiftly gave up trying to match-make him with either herself or one of the other Athosian women. She must have felt something off in that kiss, some lack of heated desire on his part that had her protecting him from the advances of other women off-world from then onwards.

Heated desire. Certainly he had never felt the rush of pleasure that filled all those chick movies and romance novels with reams of flowery verse. At least not until an Ancient jewel shining a brilliant blue forced a blessing ritual upon him that had him kissing another person also blessed by the Ancestors: Rodney.

"There you are!"

Rodney blustered his way through any half-raised objections on John's part and sat down next to him, dropping a sandwich into John's lap before he could protest.

Turkey. His favorite.

Any possibility of awkwardness fell away as Rodney launched into a diatribe over the latest fiasco in the lab, acting as if John hadn't been given the greatest Epiphany of all just hours earlier. With anyone else he might have suspected this as a ruse to make him let down his guard, but John had long ago decided Rodney was too awkward and socially unaware to have ulterior motives so he began to relax. No longer feeling he was about to be blindsided - again - he joined in.

"Well, if you will allow them free rein in the lab then you can't complain when they take full advantage while you're off-world."

Rodney narrowed his eyes but eventually he conceded defeat. He sighed and looked at John sideways, furtively.

"Perhaps it's time to address the elephant in the room... so to speak." He was wringing his hands.

John tensed. "No."

"John... I-I just wanted to-to say... sorry. You're my best friend and-and I don't have a lot of best friends, or well, friends and I'd hate to lose..." He waved his hand between them, "...this over a... because I couldn't... I kissed you, yes, and I... It wasn't my fault because you're... well... look at you. You're insanely hot and I'm..."

By now John was simply staring at Rodney as he wound down like a clockwork toy, slowly falling silent, but the desperation in his eyes spoke volumes more eloquently than all his other words. While John had been stewing in his own fear of what he had discovered about himself he never suspected Rodney was sharing his misery in the exact same way. John realized he'd been given an opportunity to pretend he hadn't experienced an Epiphany while kissing Rodney, knowing he should thank his good fortune and shrug off the whole thing in some magnanimous gesture, allow Rodney to believe it had all been one-sided, but then he made the mistake of looking at Rodney's lips and remembering how they felt and tasted.

"John?"

When he leaned over and kissed Rodney those lips were just as he remembered, just as firm and... and he closed his eyes and let himself fall as Rodney moved beneath him, and there it was again, the heat and desire so strong it threatened to steal his breath away.

"John," Rodney murmured softly, reverently, and the Haldalri's Jewel of the Ancestors seemed a pale imitation compared to the love shining brilliantly in Rodney's blue eyes.

The blessing of the Ancestors had shone on him after all.

END  
 


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